I never got very far in it, but "The Gihren Assasination Plot" was a neat and fairly well-executed idea, from what I read of it. It's worth checking out. "Ecole du Ciel" is generally held in pretty high regard, too, and I remember "Blue Destiny" being enjoyable (if a bit anti-climactic).

The biggest problem with finding any Gundam manga is that nothing is published in English anymore, and few scanslation groups seem to tackle them with any kind of dedication. These are the precise reasons why you're having such a hell of a time finding Origin, but it applies to a pretty big chunk of Gundam manga series out there.

_________________"The beast of opportunity finds its master and soars through a shaken cosmos"

In my experience, most of the Gundam manga that weren't direct adaptations of one of the TV shows have been good, with a couple exceptions being The Origin and the adaptation of 00 (I haven't had a chance to read the whole of the latter, but what little I have read of it was actually pretty good).

Off the top of my head, the only side-story manga I'd recommend staying away from is DELTA ASTRAY by Tomohiro Chiba. That one did not jive well with me at all.

If you can, read Crossbone. Its pilots are amazing. The drawings are a bit childish but the story overall is pretty good. Legend says that Tomino made this, his only manga, to tell the rest of the story of F91 after it was switched from series to movie.

_________________Aun cuando mil millones de personas acepten una idea absurda, sigue siendo absurda. Although a thousand million people accept an absurd idea, it still is an absurd idea-Henry I. Miller

The biggest problem with finding any Gundam manga is that nothing is published in English anymore

This isn't true. Bandai Entertainment released Gundam 00F, and they've licensed 00I. It's not much, but it's still something.

_________________"What did catch my eye, however, was a podcast named Gundamn!. At first I thought it was a podcast about firearms and [rednecks] discussing their collection, but after looking at the episode titles I was sold." - Xhavalor

Blue Destiny is almost required reading at this point. It's very well known and very good, but as Kratos alluded to, the manga doesn't finish the story from the original video game (IIRC, the manga doesn't cover the last third or quarter of the plot, some fairly large chunk like that), so keep that in mind if/when you read it.

Also, I'd recommend Kondo's Gundam 0079 manga. It's basically just MSG, using some elements of both the TV series and movies, and some other things here and there, but I thought it was very well done from what I read of it. However, similar to Blue Destiny, it wasn't finished (IIRC, it got up to around the battle of Solomon), and it was notoriously difficult to find all of the volumes that were done (It was around nine or ten), but it's worth looking into, particularly if you liked MSG.

New Type Monkeys and a Ball customised to look like a giant Gundam head.

Steel 7 is a superhero story which feels more like Gundam Wing than UC, which can be good or bad depending on your tastes.

You gotta admit that the reasoning behind the "B Gundam" is pretty solid. It was a scary sight, so it was useful for psycological warfare! An he took six Doms Dammit!

_________________Aun cuando mil millones de personas acepten una idea absurda, sigue siendo absurda. Although a thousand million people accept an absurd idea, it still is an absurd idea-Henry I. Miller

You gotta admit that the reasoning behind the "B Gundam" is pretty solid. It was a scary sight, so it was useful for psycological warfare! An he took six Doms Dammit!

Yeah, but still silly.

Just to clarify, Skull Heart and Steel 7 are Crossbone Gundam sequels, but without Tomino as writer. They have a very different feel to original Crossbone.

Quite different. Skull Heart is basically a couple of side stories with little relevance to each other and the original Crossbone. I haven't read Steel 7 completely but it seems like Seven Samurai dressed in Gundam elements.

*By the way the intro of Steel 7 is a note of the writer of the previous feature (Skull Heart) thanking his fans, saying that he would keep the hard work until one of his designs is made in a 1/60 PG. I lol at that!

_________________Aun cuando mil millones de personas acepten una idea absurda, sigue siendo absurda. Although a thousand million people accept an absurd idea, it still is an absurd idea-Henry I. Miller

1.Gundam: The Origin which nicely retells the original story while adding in some missing features, and letting Yaz & Okawara share some ideas that didn't get used the first time around. The US print run can be found online or at stores. 2. Portrait of a Young Comet: Char's Deleted Affair which tells a story about Char's time at Axis, before he returned to the Inner Sphere. Think of it as Zeta prequel told with a nudge-and-wink to Char's legend as a womanizer. Available in 12 Japanese volumes (beware of Chinese reprints). No fan-translation other than Zeonic so far. 3. Titans Test Team: Advance of Zeta which is the manga version of the story. Four volumes' worth of interesting story, if you can find it, and don't mind the lack of an English translation.4. Crossbone Gundam which picks up the story begun in F91 about 10 years later... Written by Tomino himself, with an interesting take on events not centered on Earth. Six Japanese volumes, dunno if anyone has a translation to any extent.

_________________"Discontent is the first step in the progress for a man or a nation." - Oscar Wilde

"The difference between persistence and obstinacy is that one often comes from a strong will, and the other from a strong won't." - Henry Ward Beecher

Definitely check out all the SEED Astrays if you're into the Cosmic Era. All of the Astray mangas with the exception of Destiny Astray and Delta Astray are officially translated by Bandai, Destiny/Delta have fan translations out there, but I think it's against the TOS to post that here.

I also highly suggest Crossbone, the story is amazing, great plot, and I personally love the Crossbone Gundam designs. This is also available as a fan translation somewhere out there. Same with Skullheart and Seven of Steel.